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MONDAY, June 16, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Young black adult
dialysis patients who live in poor neighborhoods are much more
likely to die than their white counterparts, according to a new
study.

This racial difference was much less pronounced in wealthier
neighborhoods, according to the study, published online
recently in the Journal of the American Society of
Nephrology.

Among dialysis patients aged 18 to 30, blacks are nearly
twice as likely as whites to die at a young age, but the
reasons for this difference are not well understood. The
authors of this study investigated whether wealth was a
factor.

"In our study, young black patients' risk of death was worse
when they lived in poor neighborhoods. We need to better
understand how the wealth of someone's neighborhood affects
patients' health while on dialysis," Dr. Tanya Johns, of Albert
Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, and colleagues
said in a journal news release.

They analyzed data from more than 11,000 young black and
white adults with kidney failure who started dialysis between
2006 and 2009. During a median follow-up of 23 months, black
patients in poor neighborhoods had a higher risk of death than
all other black and white patients.

When the researchers focused on patients in poor
neighborhoods, they found that blacks were 1.5 times more
likely to die than whites. The racial difference in death risk
was far smaller in richer neighborhoods.

The study findings were not explained by medical factors or
other conditions such as high blood pressure, the researchers
said.

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